Jake Kynaston

Curriculum Vitaes, business cards, employability videos, Personal

websites and online business profiles are all tools students use to
Brand themselves in the aim of gaining employment. Its not just the
students who have been and still are interested in this form of
branding though
Employers have been benefitting from students who brand
themselves in many different ways.
But this is not a new occurrence, personal branding has been a
common form of self- promotion and branding since education and
experience became compulsory to gaining a job in this increasingly
competitive world of work.
Certain individuals have always been eager to show their skills and
knowledge to whomever it may concern but now, it has become a
way to self promote ones-self as a brand. One of the earliest
examples of personal branding being introduced to us as a common
practice can be found in
Think and Grow Rich a book written by Napoleon Hill in 1937.
Youve got to be sure of yourself before you can ever win a prize,
pg61
a quote from the book that vaguely underpins the idea of Personal
Branding. Following on from this A Brand Called You 1997 written
by Tom Peters is recognized as a strong leader in the development of
personal branding. This just shows how far back personal branding
has grown and developed from, but how important has it become?

Current Research

A lot of research has already been done to highlight the importance

of personal branding and how it has developed over the years. Many
academic individuals and students have written books and articles
on the subject, an example of this can be found in Mark Morgans
(2011) Article on Personal Branding, Your personal branding efforts
weave your soft and hard skills into a portfolio that establishes
ongoing conversation about you within the circle of decision makers.
This short excerpt from the article gives a simple overview on what
the affects are of the efforts that are made.
Also covered in this article, what personal branding efforts go
towards and how they are assessed by employers! No organization
has a perfect career development and succession-planning process

The Importance of Personal Branding for

Students and Employers

Jake Kynaston

Others have looked into specific personal branding efforts and how
affective they are in the decision making process.
on 17/07/2012, Owen Churches a student at the University of South
Australia looked at 5829 academic profile pictures and how much
information is expressed from these. Although this is not directly
linked to the impact pictures have on employers, the findings are
very detailed on a psychological level and the results can definitely
have an affect on anyone. Some of the findings state that there is a
clear difference in the way academics in the sciences and the arts
present themselves to the world this was related to which side of
the face students presented to the camera and what this tells people
about emotions, personality and area of study.
If you can tell that amount of detail from a profile picture, imagine
what employers can grasp from a video CV or a personal profile
along with the face to face interview.
language, what a person wears, skills, achievements, preparation
and many other elements can all be emphasized and expressed
through personal branding techniques.
Research was very recently completed to better understand how
much information and help about personal branding is available to
Students at Southampton Solent university. Although the
quantitative questionnaire was only completed by 30 current
students, the results gained give clear points that support past
research.
Out of the 30 students asked Have you heard of Personal Branding
before? 22 answered yes which is a surprisingly positive amount
when looking back at other academic results in this area. 50% of
these Yes answers were given by Business/Law students.
Do you think you are getting enough information and advice on
Personal Branding?
only 10 students answered Yes for this question with the majority
again studying business/Law.

This is a very important subject to cover because it can be easy to

forget that there are two sides to personal branding, the students
and the employers.

Jake Kynaston

Current Issues

There are many tools and techniques out there to help with self
promotion and personal branding one of which being Weebly.
Weebly is a free webpage designer and publisher which allows
anyone to create an account, build and customize their own website
and publish this.
This is a very useful site as it allows students to really stand out by
having a link to their own personal website that details
achievements, skills, past experience, testimonials, and even a
video CV.
there are many websites like Weebly such as Wix, MoonFruit and
1and 1 but this site is frequently used by students due to its
functionality and features.
One of the main benefits for a student having a Professional website
is standing out from the crowd. An employer will find it a lot easier
and more accessible to look through someones website with
everything on it. A downside to having a personal website means
constant updates and maintenance to keep everything up to
standard.
professional presence online is one of the best ways to grab
employers attention, through personal websites, social networking
sites, blogs, podcasts and even YouTube videos. All of these allow
students to really sell themselves and provide more places for
contacts to see them.
A small downside for employers when reading through these
different LinkedIn and online cv pages is it can become very time
consuming. If every potential employee has a personal website,
video cv, written cv and LinkedIn page it can take forever to review
everything. But By actively updating a LinkedIn profile, the
likelihood that people will see that profile displayed when they are
searching the site for someone to hire or do business with is
increased, Simon Middleton, 21 Jun 2011.
Joanne Tombrakos wrote an article on Forbes, (30/11/2012) named

These questions show that even a small number of students feel

they are not getting sufficient advice and help when trying to
improve their brand image. Although there are upsides and
downsides to personal branding, everyone would benefit from
understanding the concept and its uses, even employers.
Olins (2003), definition of a brand is: a symbolic embodiment of all
the information connected to a company, product or service.
This is a perfect sum up of what students need to be making, around
themselves.

Jake Kynaston

Implications

From the research that has already been done, quite clearly there
are advantages and disadvantages to personal branding for students
and employers.
Starting with students, the ability to stand out with professionalism
and style is vital to gaining a dream job. Danial J Lair (2005) wrote
that The personal branding movement to some extent relies upon
the image of an independent, resourceful, creative, and aggressive
Professional
these traits highlighted by Danial suggest that to be successful with
personal branding, a person requires a set of skills (quoted above)
that they can base their brand around.
Theres a lot of talk about how this has a positive effect on students
and allows them to stand out, but there can also be downsides to
this, for instance If a student has attempted a personal website
including a video cv and personal statement but has not included
vital points or has grammatical errors throughout, this will instantly
loose the interest of potential employers. Constantly updating
personal websites, social media, blogs and CVs is crucial to
maintaining a high standard and professionalism that employers
want to see.
To employers, personally branded students and graduates are
impressive and can save them time. With different forms of personal
information and promotion provided, employers can get to know a
lot more about them than a simple CV. In the new era of social
networks, employees are the new face(s) of corporate culture.
Shivam Dhawan (Why Employers Care About Your Personal Brand).
On the other hand, as the demand for personal branding for
employment increases, the techniques an1d will loose there stand
out factor.
Looking through these different links on different mediums will also
be very time consuming for employers especially If they are looking
for an applicant to fill a role as soon as possible.

Conclusion

Personal branding has come a long way over the past 18 years, from
the simple idea of promoting ones self by emphasizing their skills
and accomplishments, to using different platforms and tools like

7 Reasons You Need a Vibrant Digital Profile and one of the

statistics is that LinkedIn is estimated to have more than 187
million members in over 200 countries. This really highlights the
importance of a peronsal digital brand and how popular and
necessary it is becoming.

Jake Kynaston

Findings have shown that even psychological factors play a big role
in how affective these techniques are, and how they impact
employers.

To conclude, here is a note from Tom Peters (1997) The

Brand Called You, It's this simple: You are a brand. You are in
charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there
is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start
today. Or else.

websites, videos, social networks, and a physical CV to build a

personal brand and a Professional image. This type of branding is
becoming more and more necessary to gaining employment.

Jake Kynaston

1
Bibliography
Harris, Lisa; Rae, Alan, (2011), Building a personal brand through social
networking,
The Journal of Business Strategy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Joanne Tombrakos, (30/11/ 2012), Forbes,
Lair, Daniel J,(2005), The Rhetoric and Ethics of Personal Branding, Management
Communication Quarterly : McQ, pg 307-343,

Mark Morgan, (Aug. 2011), Strategic Finance. 93.2: p13, Institute of

Management Accountants

Napoleon Hill, (1937), Think and Grow Rich, CreateSpace Independent Publishing

Platform
Owen Churches, (17/07/2012), How Academics Face the World,
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038940
Olins, W, (2003), On Brand, Thames & Hudson London.
Shivam Dhawan, (2015), Why Employers Care About Your Personal Brand,
http://personalbrandinguk.com/employers-care-personal-brand/
Simon Middleton, (2010), Build A Brand In 30 Days, capstone pubishing ltd.
Tom Peters, (1997), The Brand Called You,